"There are extremely pretty scenes all around Pangbourne, picturesque cottages and quaint bits are to be seen everywhere, beautiful walks are found in nearly every direction, up the valleys, through the woods, and over the hills, with great diversity of landscape; while the flora of the neighbourhood is more varied than in any other part of the Thames."

Henry Taunt 1885

The mirror-like surface of the water and the beautiful reflectios in the photographs are caused by an interesting phenomenon. Taunt's glass plates would have been very slow and insensitive to light by today's standards. A tripod and long exposure was required. When photographing water, with even a slight ripple, with an exposure time of a second or longer, the surface of the water 'averages itself.s out' and appears to be much flatter, causing idylllic reflections to appear.

Graham Diprose 2007

See Taunt's image on its original map.

The text above are sample extracts from the book; entries for each location are more extensive.

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